Our View: Racist Facebook comments unprofessional

Don Drain, a board member of the Madison County planning and zoning commission, resigned Tuesday after repeatedly using a racial slur in comments to two separate Facebook posts.(Photo: Matt Rourke, AP)

Social media can destroy a public servant's career faster than a corruption indictment.

Social media as a technology tool is not to blame, of course. Usually, it's the lack of judgment by the user.

Earlier this week, a Madison County official stepped down amid controversy surrounding racially charged comments he made on Facebook. He has since denied his resignation was due to that, but he has refused to provide the proof he says exists showing he resigned before any comments were ever made.

Don Drain, a member of the Madison County planning and zoning commission, resigned Tuesday after using the word "negro" and "negroes" in comments to two separate Facebook posts.

In a comment to a post about crime in Durant, a Facebook user asked, “Does anyone have the guts to name the problem?”

“The problem is negroes. Where do I pick up my prize?” Drane replied.

Madison County Supervisor Sheila Jones also commented on one of the threads — in which the original poster used several racial slurs, including the n-word. Jones was simply asking who owned a dairy bar in Durant, which led to a benign conversation about the dairy bar, the owners and their relatives. But all of this took place in the comments section to an overtly and undeniably racist post.

Jones said she didn't realize her comment was part of a thread that contained racial slurs, but such a statement really stretches credulity. The post was racially charged from the start, using the phrase “darkies” and accusing anyone who finds the word “negro” offensive of being “a bunch of offended wimps.”

This is not a new problem. Social media posts have stung other public servants in the past.

Cammie Rone, a second-grade teacher at Batesville Intermediate School in Batesville, was fired following an investigation into a 2017 complaint of racist comments on Facebook. The post read, "If blacks in this country are so offended no one is forcing them to stay here. Why don't they pack up and move back to Africa where they will have to work for a living. I am sure our government will pay for it! We pay for everything else."

A West Virginia non-profit director who called former First Lady Michelle Obama an “ape in heels” in a Facebook post was fired. Beverly Whaling, the former mayor of Clay, W.Va., resigned from her job after voicing support for her friend's post.

These sad, unfortunate incidents serve as reminders that racism and prejudice continue to exist, and the truth is they always will. That, however, does not excuse people who hold to those ideas. Neither should it prevent us from achieving a world in which such hate and bigotry is extinct.

That starts with every individual who must be personally accountable for their actions. And when it comes to public servants and those who serve in positions of leadership, they are held to a higher form of accountability. And each time they fail, their actions are far more harmful to society than those whom they serve.

It’s why our public servants and leaders have a responsibility and duty to conduct themselves in a professional and ethical manner, to be an example for others. It’s why, when they make mistakes, they should be contrite and offer up an apology and accept whatever consequences may come. Making excuses and taking to social media to blame the media and others for their predicaments is certainly not the mark of good leadership, nor is it the kind of example they should set for others.